ARTICLES ABOUT PELVIC INFLAMMATORY DISEASE BY DATE - PAGE 3

Q-Can you tell me what the diagnosis of pelvic inflammatory disease involves? A-Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), an extremely painful and potentially sterilizing condition, must be diagnosed and treated as promptly as possible. Acute PID most frequently occurs in women under 25 years of age who are sexually active with multiple partners. The IUD contraceptive device has been associated with PID, but the disease is more often linked to organisms such as gonococci and Chlamydia that are transmitted through sexual intercourse.

Q-Have you ever come across a condition that resembles gout but isn`t and is called "false gout"? How would such a condition be treated, and is it dangerous? A-Yes, there is a condition sometimes known as pseudo-gout or false gout. Actually it's a joint disease that may show itself in many ways, frequently with painful attacks that very much resemble those of gout. It's also known in medical circles as "chondrocalcinosis," which can be translated as "calcifications in the joint cartilage."

Q-What is an anaerobe? Is it dangerous? A-You must be listening in to conversations at your doctor's office! Anaerobes are a type of bacteria. All bacteria are divided into two types: those that must have oxygen to develop, aerobic bacteria, and those that can live and grow without it, anaerobic bacteria, or anaerobes. As with other microbes, not all anaerobes are dangerous. In fact, anaerobes commonly are found on our skin and mucus membranes, where they do no harm until damage or disease lets them into deeper tissue.

Services for infertile women continue to multiply. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that 15 percent of white, sexually active women in their childbearing years have used infertility services of one kind or another, as have 12 percent of Hispanic women and 10 percent of black women. Educated women are more likely than others to turn to counseling or physical therapy for infertility problems. The statistics center found that 16 percent of those who went to college had sought infertility services, compared with 9 percent of those with high school diplomas.

Dear Readers: The April 4, 1986, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is devoted almost entirely to the problem of sexually transmitted diseases--other than AIDS--in our society. I would urge all interested in the subject to obtain a copy of that issue for complete reading, but here are some of the highlights. According to the journal, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control now estimates that 3 million cases of chlamydia occur every year in this country, making it by far the most common sexually transmitted disease.

The pain, a burning ache in her abdomen, started in November. She thought it would go away, but it only got worse. After four days, she went to the hospital. "It was getting to the point where I just didn`t want to eat or do anything, it was so bad," the woman recalled. Doctors told her she had a disease she had never heard of: pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). They told her it was sexually transmitted and that she might not be able to have children because of it. She is 21 and wears her hair in New Wave style--long and wavy on the bottom, short and tousled on top. She asked that her name be withheld.